The Childrens Rebellion

Tommy-fucking-Innes kicked their fucking asses; that's what fucking happened.

"Right!" the head coach said, clapping his hands. His ears, vanilla with chocolate tips, flicked as the ghost of a breath of wind sped over the group. "Hope you all brought your running shoes because this term is going to go by quickly—you're old enough to know that we aren't going to teach you how to run, only get you to compete. I'm Coach Ant, but just call me Ant. This is the other coach—" The Feline with orange ears waved eagerly. "—Velvet, but he's my boyfriend, so don't hit on him." A smattering of laughter ran over the crowd. "Have any of you never been on a track team?"

Tommy raised his hand. He was the only one.

Ant rubbed his forehead. "Son, are you sure you should be here?"

"Yes," he said. "I ran track fields all the time back home." He didn't mention that home was a spaceship, but he recognized at least one person from his Survival Studies class—so they were bound to know. Not that they spoke up.

"Okay," Ant said, slight disbelief behind his tone. Tommy shrugged, uncaring of the Feline's opinion of him. It would change soon enough.

The coaches had them do a jog around the track, which was pleasant enough in the spring—though Tommy admitted that he had to draw on his abilities as an Avian to make the run; he really needed to train more—and he sort of relished the slight burn in his legs and the heaving in his lungs as he finished.

After that, they were sort of divided into groups based on the running they wanted to do—Tommy knew Niki would kill him if he did anything more than a hundred yards—she was probably going to kill him anyway. Still, he wanted as minor damage as possible from the Merling doctor.

There were about twelve students in his group, including the singular Human girl, who was shying away from a group of Felines that were laughing at her and muttering things.

"Hey," he said in greeting.

She glanced at him nervously. "Hi."

"I'm Tommy," he said. "You're Human too?"

She flinched as one of the Felines nearby shouted something derogatory that made Tommy glare at them. "Ignore the accent. Elytrian parents brought me up."

"Oh," he said. "That's pretty cool."

"Not when you're the only one that can't fly," she said with a sigh. "Anyway, that's why I joined Fleet school. Not that I'm trying to put my whole life story on you."

"You seem nicer than those dickheads," he said, raising his voice so they could hear as the group watched the tryouts of the four-hundred-yard runners.

"I—I suppose." She smiled at him, her blue eyes more like the sky than the ocean, as Tubbo's was.

"What's your name?"

"Sni'yfyer'ich."

"What?" he asked.

"Sni'yfyer'ich," she repeated, a slight hesitation in her gaze. "It's Elytrian for 'fallen angel'."

"Ah," he said, trying to make sense of the nonsensical word. "I'm going to call you Sniff."

"...why?"

"Because I can't pronounce your name," he admitted.

She shrugged, adjusting her headband in her hair. "Fine with me. It's better than the name-calling that I get in class."

"They're assholes," he said stoutly. "Ignore them."

"That's...not quite how it works."

"Then go deaf," he told her. Sniff laughed in disbelief, covering her mouth slightly and falling silent as the students around them turned to look at the duo. "Why are you giving me that look?"